In Iraq, Jennifer W. had stood idly by as a little Yazidi girl chained to death in the blazing sun. Now the Munich Higher Regional Court has sentenced them.
In the trial against Jennifer W., who returned to IS, the Munich Higher Regional Court sentenced the young woman from Lower Saxony to ten years in prison for membership in a terrorist organization abroad, aiding and abetting attempted murder, attempted war crimes and crimes against humanity. As an IS supporter in Iraq, she watched a little Yazidi girl being chained up in a courtyard and dying of thirst there.
The federal prosecutor had demanded a life sentence for the accused. She was guilty of enslavement resulting in death, membership in a terrorist organization and war crimes, among other things. Her defense, however, called for a maximum of two years in prison. The 30-year-old may only be convicted of membership in a terrorist organization.
Jennifer W. herself made allegations against the judiciary. “The often quoted sentence” In case of doubt for the accused “did not apply in my case,” she said in her closing remarks in front of the court. Apparently an example should be made of her for all injustice that had happened under the terrorist organization Islamic State (IS).
According to her own statement, she traveled to Iraq in 2014 to marry an IS fighter there out of ideological conviction. According to the indictment, in the summer of 2015 she watched a girl in Fallujah unprotected and exposed to the blazing sun without water. As a punishment for wetting the bed, her husband is said to have tied the five-year-old to a window grille. An agonizing torture which, according to the prosecution, led to death – and against which W. is said to have done nothing. The charge in the indictment was murder by omission. The defendant also apologized in her last word in court and referred to her ex-husband, who is on trial in Frankfurt am Main. But she was powerless to face the man’s actions and could not simply untie the girl.
Amal Clooney represents the mother of the girl who was killed
The trial of Jennifer W. made headlines in April 2019, also because an extremely prominent lawyer initially played a central role: the human rights expert and wife of actor George Clooney, Amal Clooney, who represents the co-plaintiff and mother of the girl who was killed, in court in But Munich never appeared. Before the trial, she issued a joint statement from the co-prosecution and the Yazidi organization Yazda: “Yazidi victims have been waiting far too long for their opportunity to testify in court.” According to Yazda, the Munich trial was the world’s first indictment of crimes by ISIS members against the Yazidis religious minority. Yezidi and Nobel Peace Prize winner Nadia Murad called the trial a great moment and an important process for all Yazidi survivors. “Every survivor I spoke to is waiting for one and the same thing: that the perpetrators will be prosecuted and brought to justice for their actions against the Yazidis, especially women and children.”